Browsing: Politics

A Brief History On December 17, 1957, the United States successfully launched their first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.  The SM -65 Atlas became operational in September of 1959, closely following the Soviet R-7 Semyorka that had become operational in February of that year. Digging Deeper With the advent of these ICBMs, either the US or USSR could launch an unstoppable fleet of nuclear bombs at each other anywhere on the Earth. The stunning numbers of nuclear tipped missiles and nuclear warheads fielded by the two main Cold War powers included a maximum of 32,000 nuclear…

A Brief History On October 31, 2011, a truly spooky fact became known when it was announced by the UN that the population of humans on the Earth had reached seven billion.  When the author of this article was born, there were about 2.8 billion people on Earth, which seemed to be plenty! Digging Deeper Today, there are over eight billion humans running around our planet, depleting resources and polluting the air, land and water.  Heck, why stop with just the Earth?  We are also diminishing the ozone layer in the atmosphere and increasing greenhouse gases that create global warming…

A Brief History On October 25, 1854, the gallant but foolish Battle of Balaclava took place during the Crimean War, propelling the Light Brigade into immortality when Alfred, Lord Tennyson, penned his great poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade. Digging Deeper As horrible as war is, human combat has also inspired writers to create epic poems, books and even music to remember those that fought and died.  Just a a few of these great works include: In Flanders Fields by  Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian doctor, who was lamenting the loss of life at the Second Battle of Ypres…

A Brief History On October 24, 1260, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres was dedicated.  Taking about 26 years to build, the great church is on the site of previous iterations of the cathedral, going as far back as the 4th Century and having additions to the beautiful edifice through the years, and in 1979 designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.  The cathedral draws visitors to see the relic called the Sancta Camisa, a tunic worn by Mary when Christ was born. Digging Deeper Religious buildings often receive the highest efforts of architects and artists of their day,…

A Brief History On October 22, 1721, Peter I, better known as Peter the Great, Czar of All Russia for nearly four decades at this point, announced the existence of the Russian Empire, the first time Russia had been so declared.  What was so “great” about Peter? Digging Deeper Well, for one thing, he created the Russian Empire, which he proclaimed after defeating Sweden.  Ruling with an iron fist, Peter was a prototypical absolute monarch. Some of his accomplishments include modernizing the Russian Navy and switching to the Julian Calendar, as well as personally updating the written Russian language. While…